


Heart Knows (What the Wild Goose Knows)

by aktura



Series: Soulmate For Sure (Love Was Never Like This Before) [1]
Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - The Soulmate Goose of Enforcement, Animal Attack, Crack, Geese, Gen, Goose-typical violence, Protective Dustin Henderson, Protective Steve Harrington, Rated T for Dustin’s potty mouth, Soulmates, THIS IS THE WORST THING I'VE EVER WRITTEN, but Hopper's alive and kicking somewhere in the background, could be platonic or romantic, not beta read we die like fearless geese, takes place sometime after Season 3, unexpected exercise, whatever floats your boat, wise Robin Buckley
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-28
Updated: 2019-10-28
Packaged: 2021-01-05 16:27:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21211571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aktura/pseuds/aktura
Summary: On a Tuesday morning in early May, Dustin opens the front door of his house and then promptly slams it shut again.“Mom!” he shrieks.Soulmate AU where one person finds a goose who leads them to the other person. The difficulty comes in not being mauled by a goose.





	Heart Knows (What the Wild Goose Knows)

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is brought to you by my discovery of the "Alternate Universe - The Soulmate Goose of Enforcement” tag at 12:30 AM. 
> 
> (…This is not the soulmate AU I thought I was eventually gonna get around to writing, let me tell you.)
> 
> Credit for the prompt goes to shitty-check-please-aus' tumblr blog. Title is from _Cry of the Wild Goose_ by Frankie Laine.

//

On a Tuesday morning in early May, Dustin opens the front door of his house and then promptly slams it shut again.  
  
“Mom!” he shrieks, a bit undignified perhaps, but at the moment he honestly doesn’t care as he dashes over to the couch, climbing onto it and pulling the curtains back so that he can peer out the window.  
  
Yup. It’s still there, on the front porch.  
  
“Dusty?” Mom says as she appears in the living room. She’s got her purse in one hand and the car keys in the other, ready to head to work. “What’s wrong, honey?”  
  
Dustin steels himself before walking over to the door and pulling it open, letting her get a good look at what’s outside, before closing it again.  
  
“Oh, Dusty!” Mom looks just about ready to cry with joy. She sets her purse down on the kitchen counter, hand coming up to rest over her heart. “Your _Goose!_”  
  
Before Dustin knows it, he’s being smothered in a hug.  
  
“My baby is all grown up,” Mom says, sounding wistful, and Dustin can literally feel her trembling with excitement.  
  
“Can I have a ride to school today?” he asks, voice muffled against her shoulder.  
  
“Dusty!” Mom pulls back to frown at him. “You know better! Look how nice it is outside – such good weather for a run! Not a cloud in the sky!”  
  
“_Please?_” Dustin interrupts.  
  
“Oh!” Mom cries, letting go of him and rushing over to grab the camera that’s sitting on the coffee table. “I have to take pictures before I forget!”  
  
“What? _No!_ Don’t let it in! Mom? Mom! _Don’t open the door, Mom—!_”  
  
The Goose hisses.  
  
//  
  
Dustin’s never been much for running. He thinks it’s a pretty pointless activity – at least in Gym, where they just run around in circles, but then again he’s never had a Goose nipping at his heels before. Huh. Maybe this is what they’ve been trying to prepare him for all along.  
  
“Fucking fucker I hate you so much you fucking fuck—” Dustin pants, cursing at the Goose but also himself for not working more on his cardio.  
  
Behind him he can hear the flapping of the Goose’s wings as it pursues him, waddling on its tiny, stupid legs and using its long neck to strike at him whenever he slows down to catch his breath.  
  
It’s herding him, as Geese do, having charged into the house and bullied him outside while his mom took a series of pictures that Dustin will be sure to find and burn once they’re developed, and then Chased him down Cornwallis towards the center of town.  
  
People stop and stare as Dustin flies past, murmuring in excitement, because a Goose Chase is always a special thing to watch but, as Dustin has now discovered, not so much fun to experience first hand. The Goose honks happily at the attention, flapping its wings when Dustin looks back at it over his shoulder, nearly lifting off the ground.  
  
Dustin shrieks and runs faster.  
  
Up ahead, at the intersection, a couple of people helpfully stop traffic so that Dustin can cross Mulberry without being struck by a car – though it would have been a risk he’d been willing to take, on the off chance that the Goose would’ve been flattened instead.  
  
“Thank you!” he wheezes as he runs past the good Samaritans, and then nearly faceplants as the Goose goes airborne, wings flapping and beak snapping at Dustin’s left ear to make him turn right by the library, onto Oak Street, and then biting at his right elbow to send him left, onto Cherry.  
  
“What do you want from me?!” Dustin screams, flailing his arms to fend off the Goose as he runs.  
  
The police station’s not too far away, up on the right side, behind the post office, but Dustin suspects that Hopper would just kick him back out if Dustin dared try to barricade himself inside the station, probably spouting something about traditions and the natural order of things.  
  
Thankfully, Dustin realizes, there’s a better option.  
  
He summons all of his remaining energy and puts on a burst of speed, feinting right and then dodging left when the Goose lunges at him, sprinting across a parking lot and slamming up against the entrance of Family Video, desperately pulling the door open and escaping inside.  
  
Behind the counter, Robin removes the lollipop from her mouth. She blinks. “Steve!” she turns to shout over her shoulder. “Get your ass out here!”  
  
“Ow,” Dustin pants, collapsing onto the floor, unable to feel his legs anymore – he’s shaking and sweating, feeling a bit sick to his stomach from the sudden, unexpected exercise.  
  
Outside, the Goose pecks at the glass door – once, twice, three times – before it turns and begins patrolling back and forth in front of the entrance. It honks, and if Dustin didn’t know better he’d say it looks pleased with itself.  
  
“Can’t even open a door,” he mutters, “don’t know why you’re so smug.”  
  
“Dude, your Goose!” Steve exclaims from somewhere behind him, like Dustin didn’t already know.  
  
“Yeah,” Dustin gasps, falling back and blinking up at the ceiling tiles, “it’s great. Now help me get rid of it.”  
  
Steve’s and Robin’s heads pop into his field of vision, blocking his view of the ceiling and a stain that looks surprisingly like Elvis.  
  
“What? You can’t just get _rid_ of it,” Steve sputters as Robin frowns.  
  
“Have you ever been Chased by a Goose, Steve?” Dustin snaps, lifting his head. “Have you? No! Neither of you have, so you can’t possibly understand what I’ve just been through! Now someone get a broom we can hit it with!”  
  
Steve and Robin exchange a look.  
  
“Dustin,” Robin says, adopting that sage tone of voice that she seems to have grown fond of using when speaking to Dustin or any of his friends, “the point of the Goose is that it should Chase you. You know that, right?”  
  
“I’m not an idiot,” Dustin pants, letting his head fall back against the floor.  
  
“Right,” Steve interjects. “So how are you supposed to find your soulmate if you hit the Goose with a broom?”  
  
Robin closes her eyes and takes a deep breath, which is something she tends to do around Steve a lot. “That’s not the point,” she says. “A broom’s not gonna fix anything.”  
  
“We need something sharper,” Dustin agrees.  
  
“No!” Robin snaps. “You can’t chase the Goose away! _It_ Chases _you_, you don’t chase the Goose! Besides, it’s not really corporeal in the usual sense. You can’t hurt it.”  
  
“Not corporeal my ass,” Dustin mutters, still feeling the sting of its teeth on his skin.  
  
“Just— Just get out there, and let it Chase you to your soulmate!” Robin says, gesturing in the direction of the door, and they all turn to look to where the Goose is rubbing its chest up against the glass, turning to press its head against the door so that it can peer inside with its beady little eye.  
  
“Steve,” Dustin whimpers.  
  
“Okay,” Steve says. “Alright. No broom. How about I go outside first and hold it off, and you run the rest of the way to school?”  
  
The thought of more running makes Dustin groan. “Give me a ride?” he suggests.  
  
Robin rolls her eyes. “It’s one block. Besides, you think that _Steve_ is going to stop the Goose from chasing you to your soulmate? The guy with a one-in-three success rate?”  
  
“Hey!”  
  
Dustin shakes his head. “But what if my soulmate’s a dickhead?” he opines. “What if I don’t know them? Or if I _do_ know them and they’re awful?”  
  
Robin and Steve share another look and then take a seat on either side of where Dustin’s still sprawled out on the dirty carpet. Steve reaches out to touch his shoulder.  
  
“They won’t be,” he says, and he sounds so sure that for a moment Dustin almost believes him.  
  
Robin nods. “They’re your perfect match. They’ll make you happy – that’s the whole point of having a soulmate.”  
  
“But what if I’m not ready?” he asks.  
  
Robin shrugs. “The Goose is here,” she says. “That means you’re ready.”  
  
Dustin considers this. “No broom?”  
  
Steve looks like he’s thinking about it, which makes Robin shoot him a glare. “No broom,” she declares.  
  
“But I’ll go out with you anyway,” Steve says. “Give you a head start.”  
  
“Thank you,” Dustin breathes – he always feels better when Steve’s around, and this time’s no exception.  
  
The Goose honks when Dustin gets up off the floor, backing away from the door and spreading its wings like it’s either raising them in victory, or signaling that it’s excited to engage in further fisticuffs.  
  
“Dude, where’s your cap?” Steve suddenly asks, running his fingers through Dustin’s hair as is if to demonstrate that he’s able to do that now, due to the lack of baseball cap.  
  
“Dunno,” Dustin says, “must’ve gotten knocked off when I was running for my life.”  
  
Robin rolls her eyes, but Steve nods, like he understands Dustin’s trauma.  
  
“I’ll backtrack, see if I can find it. You come straight from home?”  
  
“Yeah,” Dustin says, swallowing past the lump in his throat and trying real hard not to give in to the temptation to just grab Steve in a hug and never let him go – he always knows what’s important to Dustin, and always tries his best to make things right, even when he doesn’t have to. “Thank you.”  
  
“No problem,” Steve says, and brings his hand down to cup the back of Dustin’s head. “I’ll go out now, okay? You wait here.”  
  
The Goose tries to poke its head inside as soon as Steve starts to push the door open, hissing when it catches sight of Dustin, but Steve manages to block its body with his own. He pushes it back as he slips through the opening, reaching out to grab the Goose by the neck and gently pulling it away from the door.  
  
It’s a pretty daring move, and for a moment Dustin fully expects the Goose to turn around and bite Steve in the balls, but instead it simply tilts it head up to look at him, unblinking.  
  
“Uh,” Steve says as he lets go of its neck, and the Goose shakes its head and gives a little flap of its wings before it goes back to staring up at him. “I think it’s judging me.” His voice sounds muffled through the glass.  
  
“You’re lucky that’s all that it’s doing,” Robin mutters. “Fuck, Steve, you don’t go around touching someone else’s Goose like that!”  
  
“Hey, it touched me first!” Steve argues.  
  
He starts backing away from the front of the shop, into the parking lot, and the Goose honks and waddles after him, docile like a little lamb trailing after its shepherd. It makes Dustin’s spidey senses start to tingle.  
  
“Okay, time to go,” Robin says.  
  
She nudges Dustin forward, and he gulps and grabs at the handle, slowly pushing the door open. The Goose either doesn’t hear or doesn’t care, still trailing after Steve as he lures it further into the parking lot, and Dustin exhales a sigh of relief and steps outside.  
  
That’s when the Goose attacks, spreading its wings and lunging at Steve, nearly sinking its beak into his hip. Steve yelps, twisting away and bumping against the trunk of a nearby car as he tries to dodge the assault, and Dustin should run – the whole _point_ of this was that he should get away, but he can’t.  
  
“Hey!” he yells instead, running after the Goose, who’s now running after Steve, who in turn is well on his way across the street, crossing Cherry, headed for the church grounds. “Hey, you – Goose!”  
  
“What the hell, Dustin!” Steve shouts, slowing down once he hits the gravel on the path that leads up to the church. “You’re supposed to run _away_ from the Goose, not after it!”  
  
The Goose honks, and Dustin swears it’s laughing at them as it veers to the side, making a sharp one eighty turn and coming at Dustin from an angle that leaves him no choice but to head further away from the road, almost barreling into Steve, who catches him before Dustin can bowl them both over.  
  
Steve pulls him closer by the grip on his arm, and they both turn to watch as the Goose comes waddling towards them, head bobbing. Dustin braces himself in case it lunges or comes too close, but it stops a few feet away, flapping its wings and tilting its head to look at them.  
  
And there it stays, staring in an almost meaningful way, until Steve whispers “What’s it doing?” into Dustin’s ear. “Is it waiting to bite us again?”  
  
“I don’t know,” Dustin slowly answers, but he starting to think he might understand what’s going on, and it’s making his heart beat faster, blood rushing in his ears, the sound so loud that he almost misses what Steve says next. “Wait, what?”  
  
“I said, I’ll run at it, and then you’ll head left or right, whichever direction it doesn’t take.”  
  
“No!” Dustin grabs hold of Steve’s wrist. “That’s not— Steve. I think it’s your Goose too.”  
  
“What?” Steve says as the Goose honks, like it’s happy someone finally gets it.  
  
“Holy fuck,” Dustin breathes. “_It’s your Goose too._” He gazes up at Steve, who’s looking a little pale, a little wide eyed as he takes in what Dustin has to say. “I thought it was gonna Chase me to school and I didn’t want it to, so I— I ran to you instead because I knew you would help me. But it was never Chasing me there, because—”  
  
“—because it’s my Goose too,” Steve says.  
  
They both turn towards the Goose, who looks almost bored now – like it’s disappointed that the fun part is over and there’s no more need for any bites to be doled out. It honks at them one last time before turning and waddling off, following the gravel path until it disappears from sight.  
  
“Huh,” Steve says, and then Dustin throws himself at him, wrapping him in the tightest hug he can manage.  
  
“We’re gonna be together _forever_,” he marvels, unable to mask his relief or keep the smile out of his voice.  
  
“Yeah,” Steve says. His hand comes up to rest against the back of Dustin’s neck, squeezing. “Yeah, I guess we are.”  
  
//

**Author's Note:**

> ...I'm so sorry.
> 
> If you're interested, [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/StrangerThings/comments/c9urbq/a_map_of_hawkins_updated_for_season_3/) you can find the fanmade map of Hawkins that I use as a guide when I write.
> 
> And [here's](https://youtu.be/zkgwmPUak70) a compilation of geese attacking people. Y'know, if you're into that kind of thing...


End file.
